The Short Story. In the rush of modern life, particularly in
America, the short story has come to be the most popular type of
fiction. Just as the quickly seen, low-priced moving picture show is
taking the place of the drama, with the average person, so the short
stories that are found so plentifully in the numerous periodicals of
the day are supplanting the novel.
The short story may be read at a single sitting. It is a distinct type
of literature; that is, it is not just a novel made short or condensed;
it is in its inner plan of a wholly different nature. It relates only
some single important incident or a closely related series of events,
taking place usually in a short space of time, and acted out by a
single chief character. It is like a cross section of life, however,
from which one may judge much of the earlier as well as the later life
of the character.
Its History. The idea of the short story is a decidedly modern
conception. It was in the first half of the last century that Edgar
Allan Poe worked out the idea that the short story should create a
single effect. In his story, "The Fall of the House of Usher," for
example, the single effect is a feeling of horror. In the first
sentence of the story he begins to create this effect by words that
suggest to the reader's imagination gloom and foreboding. This he
consciously carries out just as an artist creates the picture of his
dreams with many skillful strokes of his brush. Poe gave attention also
to compressing all the details of the plot of the story instead of
expanding them as in a long story or novel. He believed, too, that the
plot should be original or else worked out in some new way. The single
incident given, moreover, should reveal to the imagination of the
reader the entire life of the chief character. Almost at the same time,
Nathaniel Hawthorne, with a less conscious effort to create a single
effect, based his tales upon the same ideas, with a tendency towards
romance.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Guy de Maupassant, a
French author without acquaintance with the work of the American
writers, conceived the same idea of the short story, adding to it the
quality of dramatic effect; that is, the idea that the single main
incident should appeal to the imagination of the reader just as if it
were a little play presented to him.
Bret Harte followed in this country with short stories that brought
out, less precisely, the same idea of the short story, with the
addition of local color, the atmosphere of California and the West.
Rudyard Kipling, who became a master of the technique of the short
story in England, has colored his stories with the atmosphere of India
and the far East, while O. Henry, the American master, has given us
character types of the big cities, particularly of New York.
Its Composition. You, no doubt, have written stories for your
composition work, but so far they have probably been chronological
narratives; that is, stories told, as the newspapers tell them, by
relating a series of events in the order of time. The real short story,
has, like the novel, a plot. The word _plot_ here means the systematic
plan or pattern into which the author weaves the events of the story up
to some finishing point of intense interest or of great importance to
the story. This vital part of the narrative is called the _climax_ or
crucial point. If you note the pattern or design in wall paper, carpet,
or dress ornament, you will see that all the threads or lines are
usually worked together to form a harmonious whole, but there is some
special center of the design toward which everything works. In the
short story, as soon as the author arrives at the crucial point he is
through, often having no other conclusion. This ending is so important
that it must always be thought out or planned for from the very
beginning. This is true even in a surprise ending, such as O. Henry
delights in.
Unlike the novel, the short story works its plot out in some single
main incident, which is usually acted out by one chief character in a
short space of time, and all but the necessary details are omitted.
Thus the short story, which is read in a brief time, has a better
opportunity than the novel to produce a complete unity of effect upon
the mind of the reader, such as the effect of horror in Poe's "The Fall
of the House of Usher."
The short story consists of setting, characterization, and narrative.
Any one of these may be emphasized more than the other two. To
illustrate from the stories included in this book: Mr. Garland has
emphasized setting, or time, place, and atmosphere, in "The Camping
Trip." That is, the greatest interest in the story lies in the
beautiful background of the out-of-doors in Iowa in the month of
June. In "Friends," on the other hand, Myra Kelly has emphasized
characterization, for Mrs. Mowgelewsky, Morris, and Miss Bailey present
the real interest of the story. In "The Red-Headed League" by Conan
Doyle the attention centers upon the action.
The technical details of the short story may be summed up and made
clearer to you by illustrating them from the first story given in this
collection, "The Gift of the Magi." The story is "set" in an
eight-dollar-a-week apartment in New York City on the day before
Christmas of some recent year, in an atmosphere of poverty, but a
poverty made radiant by unselfish love. The plot of one main
incident--Della's sacrifice of her hair in order to get a Christmas
present for her husband--takes place in the short space of a few hours,
and works out to a half-humorous, half-pathetic climax, when Della and
Jim display their Christmas gifts for each other. This story has a
conclusion of one paragraph in length where the author reflects upon
what makes a real Christmas giver.
This is the skeleton of the story, but when you think it over, you will
realize that the real charm and interest for you lay in something that
the genius and style of the writer infused into this framework of the
story.
Suggestions. In the composition work that you do during the
weeks that you are reading the short stories in this volume would it
not be interesting to you to try to write stories with little plots
that lead up to some high point of interest, stories of a single main
incident or a closely related series of events covering a short space
of time?
You will find that the stories in this collection are of different
types with settings that take you in imagination all over our own
country and into foreign lands. Try writing a story with a surprise
ending like "The Gift of the Magi," a character story with the theme of
unselfish love, and its setting in a big city. Again, "John G," the
story of adventure with an animal for the hero, might suggest to you an
adventuresome incident in your own experience. If you have a vivid
imagination, it might be interesting to write a fanciful story like
"Feathertop." All of you have heard of true and thrilling incidents of
the recent Great War. Try to weave one into a good war story as did
Daudet or Mrs. Andrews. Almost every young person loves nature or the
open country. After you have read Mr. Garland's, "The Camping Trip,"
see how well you can tell a story of your own experience in the
out-of-doors. Or, best of all, see if you can equal the great Conan
Doyle in a detective story.
With the help of the biographical sketches and study notes, see if you
can classify, as types, the stories that have not been classified in
the preceding paragraph.